"Food. It’s something we all think about, talk about, and need. Food has been one major topic of interest at National Geographic because it connects all of us to our environment. The recent global population projections for the year 2100 just went up from 9 billion to 11 billion, making the issues of food production and distribution all the more important. For the last 3 years I’ve stored podcasts, articles, videos, and other resources on my personal site on a wide range of geographic issues, including food resources. I thought that sharing 10 of my personal favorite resources on the geography of food would be helpful to understand our changing global food systems."

Every teacher knows that visual aids are a good way to facilitate the learning process and grab students’ attention for a long time. Educators use different posters, videos, slideshows to explain a new topic, provide more details or even test students. Presentations take a prominent part in the visual aids collection. Their main benefit is that teachers can combine various types of content in one presentation: text, images, video clips, music. Saved in a video format, presentations can be easily shown in class, uploaded to YouTube, embedded into a school website, or shared on any other educational resource.

Every teacher knows that visual aids are a good way to facilitate the learning process and grab students’ attention for a long time. Educators use different posters, videos, slideshows to explain a new topic, provide more details or even test students. Presentations take a prominent part in the visual aids collection. Their main benefit is that teachers can combine various types of content in one presentation: text, images, video clips, music. Saved in a video format, presentations can be easily shown in class, uploaded to YouTube, embedded into a school website, or shared on any other educational resource.

Several years ago, teachers had a limited choice of software to create presentations. Namely, there was only one tool for all presentation needs: Microsoft PowerPoint. With it, educators created, edited, and showed their presentations to students. The software was often non-responding in the most crucial moment. To say more, unskilled users often corrupted PPT files, did undesired edits, and simply could not show their works in incompatible school PC operating systems. Only a couple years ago, Microsoft added the possibility to save presentations in popular video formats and upload to YouTube. At the same time, there appeared a great deal of free alternatives, which allowed teachers to create video presentations much easier and faster than with PowerPoint. Here are the most prominent of them.

A discussion with Ashley Williams @cashleywilliams and John Stevens @jstevens009 about the switch from teacher to technology coach. This show includes hosts Karl Lindgren-Streicher @ls_karl, Amy Fadeji @mrsfadeji, and Jon Samuelson @jonsamuelson. Listen to this show and get informed on what it's like to be a teacher on special assignment. Tune in every Monday for the live show at 7PM PST.

Location, climate, culture, and economic problems affect how people do things in certain environments around the world. The article mentions that schools “should be eating what grows around you,” but we cannot always rely on local agriculture since some products could actually cause more health problems for the public. Educational institutions, especially for children, should be the most concerned with this issue. Schools systems should be trained and ensure that their lunchroom meals adhere to nutritional standards and offer healthy choices for their students. Another problem is that some region’s agriculture may be affected by the climate and low farm budgets which forces schools to have to settle for non-natural and unhealthy food options in order to reduce costs

Creating flipped video lessons is one of the topics that I frequently receive questions about in my email inbox. I've started putting together some videos about how to use various tools for creating and sharing flipped video lessons. In the videos embedded below I demonstrate how use EduCanon, VideoNotes, EDpuzzle, Versal, and Otus to create and distribute flipped video lessons.

This is a must for those teachers use the great benefits that the AppleTV can bring to the classroom.

Do you see this intro screen when the Apple TV turns on?

Those movies on the top? While a lot of these are the most popular movies playing though it is, they may not be the most appropriate for our students. This happened just today as I was teaching in another classroom, and it was a small distraction during my lesson. Kids were excited to see their favorite movie, in this instance, Big Hero 6. They cheered and became excited. Wild this case was harmless, I can only imagine other cases where movies that are rated PG-13 or higher can cause some concern for teachers of younger students. These can even be a distraction for high schoolers, who will likely veer off topic if they see a movie that they like or dislike.

With the new millennium, jobs have been changed. Also, with new technology, which has led to an increased unemployment rate, different kind of jobs have shifted during the last past two decades. Driver trucks are one of the vast modes of transportation in the U.S. and between Mexico and Canada. It does not require too much to be a tractor-trailer truck operator. Usually, the drivers have a high school diploma and attend a professional truck-driving school. As the economy grows, the demand for goods will increase, and more truck drivers will be needed to keep supply chains moving. Truck drivers provide an essential service to industrialized societies by transporting finished goods and raw materials over land, typically to and from manufacturing plants, retail, and distribution centers. As technology continues to advance, massive globalization seems to be a better option for the economy. Driver trucks present a good chance in the workforce. As a result, driver truck careers are projected to grow 11% between 2012 and 2022. Furthermore, truck driving is a part of American lifestyle, and one of the fastest growing of all occupations.

"Over the last 10 years, businesses, scientists and hobbyists from all over the world have been using Google Earth Pro for everything from planning hikes to placing solar panels on rooftops. Google Earth Pro has all the easy-to-use features and detailed imagery of Google Earth, along with advanced tools that help you measure 3D buildings, print high-resolution images for presentations or reports, and record HD movies of your virtual flights around the world.

Starting today, even more people will be able to access Google Earth Pro: we're making it available for free. To see what Earth Pro can do for you—or to just have fun flying around the world—grab a free key and download Earth Pro today."

- As more districts across the United States move to 1:1 initiatives, a common barrier is financial resources, and a common temptation is to regard these initiatives as technology enterprises rather than instructional transformations. In a three-year pilot project, the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) addressed these challenges by implementing a creative approach designed to entice public funders by providing all students with equitable access to digital devices.

Earlier this week Larry Ferlazzo wrote a good post about how he is using Clyp.it to have his ELL students create and share short audio recordings. His post even includes an example from a student. I had not heard of Clyp.it prior to reading Larry's post so I had to try it out.

While plate tectonics is now universally accepted, when Alfred Wegener first proposed continental drift it was it was greeted with a great deal of skepticism from the academic community. This video nicely shows how scientific advancement requires exploration and imagination, and whole lot of heart.

TecFrom a press release: As part of a national movement called the Tech Timeout Academic Challenge, a San Francisco school will shut down their tech devices for three days beginning February 12.

SAN FRANCISCO What happens when over 1,100 students in grades K-12, at a school that prides itself on ubiquitous access to technology, power down their electronic devices for three straight days? That question will be answered on February 12-14 when students at Convent & Stuart Hall in San Francisco take The Tech Timeout Academic Challenge. It will be the first school in the greater Bay Area to take the challenge and just the third in California.

With more than 18 million downloads to date, Minecraft is the best-selling computer game of all time; the game’s free-form structure has made it popular with kids and adults alike. But little by little, teachers, parents, and students have discovered that the game can be used for educational purposes, too. Former teacher Joel Levin and his colleagues founded a startup called TeacherGaming that aims to bring Minecraft into classrooms everywhere, helping students and teachers of all disciplines use their creativity to design projects, free from the kinds of limitations they would face using traditional methods.

With the new millennium, jobs have been changed. Also, with new technology, which has led to an increased unemployment rate, different kind of jobs have shifted during the last past two decades. Driver trucks are one of the vast modes of transportation in the U.S. and between Mexico and Canada. It does not require too much to be a tractor-trailer truck operator. Usually, the drivers have a high school diploma and attend a professional truck-driving school. As the economy grows, the demand for goods will increase, and more truck drivers will be needed to keep supply chains moving. Truck drivers provide an essential service to industrialized societies by transporting finished goods and raw materials over land, typically to and from manufacturing plants, retail, and distribution centers. As technology continues to advance, massive globalization seems to be a better option for the economy. Driver trucks present a good chance in the workforce. As a result, driver truck careers are projected to grow 11% between 2012 and 2022. Furthermore, truck driving is a part of American lifestyle, and one of the fastest growing of all occupations.

Soft they may be, but these skills constitute a combination that is essential to the core work of innovation, which rarely happens in instantaneous individual breakthroughs but rather evolves through collaborative group endeavors in which personal ad...

Using Book Creator as an Assessment Tool

Book creator has probably been the app I have used most, in my teaching, with pupils and in my training. The blank canvas aspect means it can be used across the whole curriculum and the addition of the pen tool in the last few weeks has added to that.

We use Showbie at school for pupils to share their work, including books made with Book Creator from the iPads and home to the teachers for assessment. Recently, we have used both the Pen Tool and Record feature to give feedback on the pupils' eBooks. The pupils send their books using Showbie and the teacher opens them up on his/her iPad. They can then annotate with their voice, pen and text. The book can then be sent back to the pupils using Showbie. The pupil can either change the original book and delete the annotated one or change the annotated book and delete the original.

The screenshot shows a book of a Science experiment. The teacher can annotate with arrows but also add audio feedback. All elements of Book Creator can be deleted so the pupil can restore any annotated book to the original.

This is obviously not a new idea but the pen tool has certainly made this quicker in a widely used app such as Book Creator.

I've posted several resources here about some of the intriguing cultural interactions in the Middle East stemming from globalization. I thought there was some excellent public dialog after the Charlie Hebdo shooting, but I was disheartened by some of prejudiced responses that I've heard since then--that inspired me to pull some of them together in this this article I wrote for National Geographic Education.

It doesn’t take a lot of digging to find free media online, but more often than not, although these assets may be free to view and often download, copyright and licensing rules can put some pretty heavy restrictions on using them. This is where sites like the Public Domain Project can be of huge value, providing easy and searchable access to media files that are completely free of all known copyright restrictions. And that’s about as free as free gets on the modern web.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.